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Re: Drag an asteroid back to earth..

Re: Drag an asteroid back to earth..

I guess my only question is "why?" Asteroids aren't terribly interesting, from a scientific point of view -- we already know the composition of most of them, and the only real value they have is in mineral mining sometime in the distant future.

Re: Drag an asteroid back to earth..

Originally Posted by Caveat Emperor

I guess my only question is "why?" Asteroids aren't terribly interesting, from a scientific point of view -- we already know the composition of most of them, and the only real value they have is in mineral mining sometime in the distant future.

Just IMO, but NASA's eyes should be on Mars 24/7.

I guess one reason is to calm those doomsday folks who fear an asteroid causing our destruction.

Re: Drag an asteroid back to earth..

Honestly, if there's a huge asteroid coming towards Earth, the best chance we have for survival as a species is if we have a self-sustaining colony established on another planet like Mars.

That's something that's within our reach in my lifetime.

I don't think humans will been able to take a breath on Mars without a spacesuit in your lifetime. I don't know how much we can do to deflect an asteroid. I'd think our missle defense system would be our best chance and we can't get any good info on where we stand there for obvious reasons

Re: Drag an asteroid back to earth..

The reason why is to prove the concept that asteroids can be snared and moved into orbit around the moon, where they will be much closer to Earth and can be used to harvest water which can be used to make rocket fuel for use on a mission to Mars. It would make a Mars mission much cheaper and easier. Given the large quantities of rocket fuel required for a mission to deep space it would be extremely difficult and prohibitively expensive to get enough fuel off of Earth and into orbit for use by a spacecraft. It costs millions of dollars to put one ton of cargo into orbit, and tens of thousands of tons of fuel would be needed. If you can make that fuel with materials harvested from an asteroid it would save a 100+ billion dollars off the cost of a mission to Mars. You make rocket fuel by splitting water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen molecules. Even a fairly small asteroid could hold enough frozen water to fuel Mars missions.

99% of all asteroids are millions of miles from Earth and it would take years just to get to them, which makes the raw materials they hold far too expensive too harvest for use on space missions. By dragging the asteroid closer to Earth you save time and money and you use less fuel travelling back and forth, which means you have more fuel for the Mars mission.

When it comes to deflecting an asteroid that threatens to crash into Earth, you really only need to deflect it a tiny amount to make it sail off into space instead of hitting the planet. The earlier we deflect it the less of a nudge that will be required. If the asteroid is millions of miles away we would only be required to nudge it a tiny fraction of one degree off course to make it miss the planet. Given that the asteroid will be traveling at 20,000mph or faster we would need to detect it long before it gets close to the planet. It would have to be detected weeks or months in advance so we could launch a spacecraft to intercept and deflect the asteroid while it is millions of miles out in space. At that distance from Earth, even a tiny explosion or a small booster rocket would suffice to deflect the asteroid enough to make it miss.

Re: Drag an asteroid back to earth..

Originally Posted by AtomicDumpling

The reason why is to prove the concept that asteroids can be snared and moved into orbit around the moon, where they will be much closer to Earth and can be used to harvest water which can be used to make rocket fuel for use on a mission to Mars.

Re: Drag an asteroid back to earth..

Originally Posted by Sea Ray

How much water is on one of these 25 ft rocks?

Oh boy. The 25 foot rock is a test to prove the concept that asteroids can be moved and to learn the best way to do it. Obviously they would need to move a bigger asteroid to use for mining purposes. Don't you think it would be a good idea to practice a little bit before attempting an expensive mega-mission?

Projects such as this one offer an opportunity for American companies to be on the cutting edge of profitable new technologies that could change our lives here on Earth like many of the technologies developed during previous space programs have.

Re: Drag an asteroid back to earth..

Don't we already have Roseanne?

Originally Posted by Scrap Irony

Calipari is not, nor has he ever been accused or "caught", cheating. He himself turned in one of his players (Camby) for dealing with an agent to get one Final Four overturned. The other is all on the NCAA and Rose. (IF Rose cheated.)

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